


Sirens

by Sapphires_and_Gold



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Little Mermaid Fusion, Braime - Freeform, Braime Rights, Brienne x Jaime - Freeform, F/M, Fictober 2019 Transfer, I stan Ser Davos, Jaimes x Brienne, Kingsguard, Mermaid!Brienne, Mermaids, Selkies but make it fashion, Shipwreck, Stoneheart/Red Witch Realness, Tarth, The Shape Of Water, The little mermaid - Freeform, ficlet into fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 14:02:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 7,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21209741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphires_and_Gold/pseuds/Sapphires_and_Gold
Summary: This work has been copied over from my Fictober 2019 collection"Put Me Back Together"- chapters 17, 22 and 27, and is based on a prompt on Tumblr from @chromium-siren.I've broken the original 3-chapter work up into 10 chapters to make it a little more digestible.To everyone who read the original pieces and left so many wonderful comments there - thank you from the bottom of my heart for encouraging me to dive into this world and turn it into something real. XOXO





	1. Chapter 1

Her father had always warned her that men were not to be trusted. The sea protected them. Staying beneath the waves protected them. Men could not breathe beneath the waves. Men died there. 

When she had been young - young enough that she sometimes still swam awkwardly with her limbs still finding their rhythm - she had been caught by a forceful current and dragged up and over a sandbar, and beached in the low tide. The sun had beaten down on her, and she had gripped the dry land as tightly as possible, willing the tide to return; the sun burned her exposed skin and drew out spots that her kind had never seen before. Freckles, the boy had called them. 

The boy. 

Renly. 

He had found her. Despite the stories her father had told her of the terrible deeds of men, Renly had seemed unlike any other. He did not shy from her - from her tail, her sun-scorched skin, or the muscular shoulders that marked all of her people. He did not poke her or try to scrape off her scales or pull her further from the sea. Instead he had stood over her, blocking the sun, and shaded her while he scooped water over her tail, talking to her to keep her calm, and kept her from drying out until there was enough water over the sandbar for him to shift her toward the coastal shelf. 

In spite of her father’s wishes, she would return to that spot often - never close enough to risk the current again while she was still young, but near enough that she could see Renly and sometimes he would see her. Sometimes she would hum until the ripples vibrating off of her body reached the shore, carrying the low tones to him, and he would pick up his head and smile in her direction. 

They grew up in parallel - Renly grew taller, darker, more handsome; if she had legs she would be even taller than he, neither the freckles nor the pink burns on her cheeks from that day ever faded completely, and she was not beautiful. 

Some years later, the boy - now a man - stopped visiting the beach. When she gave up trying to see him again, her tears mixed with the sea as she sank back into the depths. It would be many moons before she would break the surface again.


	2. Chapter 2

She had been sleeping peacefully, her long azure tail curled on the kelp bed while her pale yellow hair floated around her face, almost as if in a gentle breeze. Above the surface, her hair felt coarse, but here it was soft as the green mass beneath her. She was startled awake by a flash of yellow and orange light far above her, followed not long after by a wave of pressure that carried with it a jarring booming sound. 

Looking up, she could barely make out the narrow shape of a ship surrounded by what appeared to be concentrated daylight. But it could not be the sun. Curious, she stretched her limbs and then pushed herself upwards, faster and faster until she could make out smaller silhouettes near the ship, all highlighted by the yellow and orange glow. 

She knew that she should stay below. She knew that her father would wish her to remain safe, and away from the men who had created this disturbance. Her father would have viewed the light as a warning to stay far away; but she was lured to it, almost as if it were a beacon calling her home. 

She slowed and swam past the edges of the light before breaking the surface. When her ears found the air, she was met with a roar peppered with screams. The ship was aflame - pieces of it were cast about in the water, mostly floating, some with men dying or already dead upon them. The belly of the ship must have burst in some way, for an enormous blackened hole could be seen in the side, thick black smoke pouring from its bowels. With a groan, the ship began to tilt as the gaping belly took on water. The fire continued to blaze within and above and suddenly she could see a shadow moving against the flames.

There was a man.

He appeared to be trapped - one of his arms was pinned beneath a beam that had fallen in the blast, and he was struggling to get free. She could see no one else living on board, only the man. And the ship tilted further. Then something snapped. The beam was suddenly, violently, lifted away from the man when the mast broke in two thanks to the buckling ship. The man shouted in pain and tried to step to safety, but the vessel had tilted so deeply that he could not gain his footing. She watched as he tumbled from the deck and into the dark water. 

She dove beneath the waves and swam as quickly as she could, dodging flotsam and praying to the drowned god that the ship did not sink further, or that its remaining beams did not crash down upon her while she sped to reach him. She spotted him slipping beneath the water, his golden hair catching the remains of the firelight above. An inch-long gash in his forehead was spilling blood into the sea, and his injured arm was bloody as well. 

She knew two things in this moment. One was that with the other men already dead in the water, and now this man’s blood flowing freely, the sharks would be surrounding them soon if they had not already begun to circle in the dark. And the second was that men could not breathe beneath the waves. Her father would have let this man sink to his death. Her father would let the sharks tear his limbs from him and then let the crabs feast on his shredded flesh. 

But there was something about this man. 

And her father was not here. 

And she was more honorable than that. 

She looped her arm under the man’s shoulder and hoisted him upward until they reached the burning air. And then she dragged him laterally until they had nearly cleared the wreckage. There was a good size piece of board floating nearby, and she pushed him onto it. They were many miles from the shore, and with predators likely already trailing through the water below, she had to act quickly to ensure that they would reach it. 

She knew why her father had cautioned her away from men. She knew that her scales were valuable to men and that they would cut them from her unceremoniously if given the chance. But she also knew from her idle youth that if she plucked them herself she would neither bleed nor feel the pain at their removal. Her scales could grow back. But the man was losing blood quickly. 

She made her choice. 

She chose a cluster near her hip and one by one wiggled them free, feeling the pull and a pinch, but then nothing. Three made up the size of her palm, and she would need at least thrice that to help the man. When she had enough, she applied them, sticky, to the man’s forehead, and then along the worst parts of his arm. The bleeding ceased, and she tested a flick of her tail to ensure that there was no pain in her side. There was not, and so she flipped it powerfully and propelled the man and the board away from the wreckage. 


	3. Chapter 3

When they reached the shore line some time later, she slipped him from the board and onto the familiar sandbar, careful to keep her tail close to the shelf, wary of the current and tide. The sky was purpling, pinks forming in the furthest reaches of the east. She was finally able to really look at his face and examine his features while he lay with his back in the sand, breathing shallowly.

He was fair of face - fairer even, she thought, than Renly was when last she saw the dark, blue-eyed youth. This man’s hair was yellow like hers, but unlike hers, it was soft above the water and curled gently around his face as it dried in the air. His shoulders were as broad as hers, and his legs seemed powerful, like her tail. 

The pinks turned to orange behind her as she peeled the healing scales from his forehead revealing a pale pink line which in time would fade. His face was golden almost as his hair. And he was warm. She felt it in his breath when it blew against her wrists as she hovered over his forehead. And she felt it in her hands when she lifted his arm and removed the remaining scales, revealing smooth pink skin along his wrist which contrasted slightly with his natural tan. In time, this too would fade. 

As the sun got closer to the horizon, she knew that she should not stay. There was no telling what kind of man he was, and whether he would wake and drag her out of the water - if he had the strength. She could not know, and yet she lingered, hoping he would open his eyes so that she might at least glance them and remember their color and form in her mind a full picture of his likeness after she swam back into the deep. 

She knew that she should go, but instead she drew herself up beside him and perched on the sandbar, her tail still fluttering below. Her hand drifted over him as she started to hum to herself - a lullaby from her mother. She ran her fingers over the calluses of his hands, over the strange skin at his elbow; she stroked the wiry golden hair on his chest that bounced back against her hand as she moved; she gently touched his chapped lips, feeling his breath buffer against her finger tips, and she grinned. Finally she held her hand to his neck, wrapping tendrils of his hair around her fingers while his pulse beat against her palm. 

As the sun began to rise over the horizon, he took a deeper breath, and suddenly his eyes were open and staring into hers, and she stopped humming. 

Green. 

A forever kind of green. 

A green that one could not quite find beneath the waves unless one knew where to look - a green from deep in the coral forests where the most dangerous fish lived. Green of the deep ocean, flecked with sunlight. 

Beautiful. 

“Don’t stop,” he croaked. “It’s beautiful.”

She felt her freckles pop with her blush, and he smiled gently up at her. 

“I know what you are.”

She stiffened, her hand slipping to his shoulder, her body ready to jump. 

“I will not hurt you,” he assured her, “You saved me.” He touched his previously-injured hand to his temple as if feeling for a bruise, and then he too stiffened and raised his hand away from his face, realizing then that his injury was of the past. “You saved me,” he said again. 

The sun was rising and she could feel her skin begin to pink from its rays. Her hand slipped away from him, and she slid into the water, to her neck. 

“Wait!”

She turned back to face him as he sat up gingerly, his legs dangling in the water, and shaded his eyes against the sun with his hand. “You saved me. I owe you. Whatever you want of me, it’s yours.”

She wanted to never look away from his eyes. She wanted to brush his scarred temple with her lips. She wanted to sink into the waves with him and feel his hand in her hair there, where it would be soft. She wanted to wrap her tail around his legs and never let go. Instead she dipped into the water to smooth her hair back and then rose again in front of him, between his knees. 

She did not have much practice with speaking in the air, so she kept her tone low, as if still humming. “Your name,” she rasped. 

He looked at her, his eyes dashing madly about her features as if trying to unlock a puzzle there. “You want my name, as payment for saving me?”

She blinked, and nodded once. 

“Jaime,” he said, “my name is Jaime.”

She nodded again and went to push away, but his hand caught her shoulder, nearly toppling himself into the water. She caught him and righted him as he chuckled, the vibrations sounding pleasantly against her palm. 

“I have no right to it,” he said, “I’ve done nothing to deserve it. But if we should never meet again, I wish to have a name to go with the most astonishing eyes in the sea.” 

She looked at him warily, but he smiled genuinely. “Please. I would like to know to whom I owe my life, and to whom my name now belongs,” he added wryly.

She swallowed, and spoke again in the same tone, “Brienne.”

When he smiled again, his teeth shone in the bright sunlight. “Brienne. Thank you.” He let go of her shoulder and cupped her face, his fingers toying with the coarse hair behind her ears as if it were as pleasant as his own. She nodded again, and pushed away, this time far enough that he could not have reached for her if he had tried. But he did not, he only sat there at the edge of the shore with a strange smile on his face, his eyes trained on hers. 

With one last glance as those green eyes, she slipped beneath the waves.


	4. Chapter 4

Brienne did not go back to the shore after that. Jaime had not been of the beach as Renly had, he had been traveling across the sea. She knew that he would not visit the shore, that he might never touch the sea again, even. And so she saved her tears and her voice and went on, waking each morning with only the memory of his eyes. 

One year to the day following the rescue, there was an unnatural storm over their ocean. It altered the direction of the currents, and made the waves more powerful, reaching lower than ever before. 

Brienne’s father Selwyn led his people, swimming for safety, but the currents trapped them and dragged them across a dead coral forest. Their tails and hair snagged on the calcified fauna, scraping them as they fought the tide that made the water churn around them, until all were huddled at the entrance to a rocky cave. Unable to escape through the maelstrom, Selwyn led them deeper into the cavern to seek another way out, following a light from within that made the stone almost glow.

The rocks of the cavern were overly warm to the touch and the water there felt thick, almost spoiled, unsafe. The glow, they found, was from magma pouring directly out of the sea floor and seeping into a crevasse at the center of the cavern, lending everything a bright red tinge. 

Across the crevasse was a being that appeared to have two heads - one with fiery red hair that, to Brienne, seemed to glow independent of the molten rock, and the other the head of a creature that matched the beast’s body. As the being turned toward the assembled group, Brienne sensed others surrounding them - selkies. The fire-haired one had the seal hood pulled back, giving her the appearance of a second helm; but the others kept theirs on. They pinned their quarry to the walls with their claws as their leader began to speak.

She was a witch, one who consorted with the god of death to sustain the selkie existence and who, by the grace of that god, defied death itself. But she did so at great expense to the living, and had been doing so for a very long time. 

The witch approached Brienne and, without looking away from her eyes, put a claw to the place on Brienne’s hip where she had once removed the scales to heal Jaime. Under her hand, the spot burned. “Twelve moons ago,” the witch said, “you interfered with my sacrifice.” She shifted her head and Brienne could see that there was a wide stripe of white hair starting at the woman’s temple. “All of those men should have perished. But one survived. I have scoured the ocean for this man in order to finish the sacrifice, but he has not returned. You stole his life from me. So now I will take the lives of you and your entire pod in exchange.” 

Brienne could hear the others struggling alongside her but she could not look away from the witch. “Please, I did this, not my people. Take my life - let them live.” 

The selkie was not satisfied. “The lives of merfolk and selkies are not precious to the gods - the lives of men are. And this man is worth more to them than all of you. But… if you could find the man...” 

Brienne hesitated, then, “Yes?”

The witch cocked her head. “If you could do what I could not, and bring him here - then you and your people could go free.” 

Jaime’s eyes fading to darkness in death flashed across her mind. “If I bring him here, beneath the waves, he will already be dead - what good does that do for your sacrifice?”

The witch arched her brow, “You stole his life from me. It is now your sacrifice: either you drown him or you kill everyone you care for and lose your life as well.”

“Brienne,” her father said behind her, knowing nothing of Brienne’s inner torture, “Our people could have a chance to live, we could have a chance.”

“I know.” She wished it was not this way, by all the gods. “Only I do not know whether I can.” She turned to the witch, “You say he has not returned to the sea in twelve moons. How can I find him when you have not?” 

“He is a knight, sworn to a king - you should have no trouble finding him once you are on land.” 

“On land?” 

“You will go to the surface. The gods will give you legs. They will even use their magic to give you beauty so that you might entice him to follow you, for it is better for all if he does so, and men are easily drawn in by beautiful things.”

“I thought that your kind could do that without--”

“--Yes, but if we are away from our skin for too long, we will remain human. None of us can afford that. As long as you return to the ocean by the next new moon, you shall resume your current form. And so long as you drown him and bring his body to me, the rest of you will not be destroyed. 

Brienne agreed. 

No one tried to stop her. 

The witch dug her claws into Brienne’s scales painfully and sliced downward, shredding her tail and filling the water with blood and skin and screams - both from Brienne and the terrified merfolk at her side. When the cloudy water began to clear, her lower body was human - scratched and bloody, but human. The selkie wasted no time in floating Brienne backwards toward the entrance to the cave while gripping her neck and face, sealing her gills. With little ceremony, Brienne was shoved into the whirlpool that blocked the cave entrance like a churning water spout. It heaved her to the surface and into the air, gasping. 

Her legs did not work like her tail did, her arms felt weak, breathing hurt, and she could barely move. Eventually she tired out and drifted. 


	5. Chapter 5

When Brienne woke again, she was still rocking with the motion of the sea. She was laying in some sort of bed - not soft as she was accustomed to, but clean and dry. Her skin felt itchy and when she opened her eyes she realized why. Someone had dressed her in linens, much like she had seen Renly in as a boy. Her legs felt heavy - someone had bandaged them beneath the long shirt. And there was a man seated in the corner of the room. Older, a black and silver beard clinging to his face. Staring at her. 

She made as if to speak but she found that her throat was too dry, too contained. The man saw her movements and got up to bring her water in a tankard, which she gulped, parched in a way she had only felt on that sandbar long ago. 

The man asked for her name, but still no words would come. So he gave her his - Davos - and explained that they had fished her out of the sea. He told her that they had preserved her modesty as best they could, and that on a ship full of smugglers she could be assured of their silence on the matter. He went on to explain that they were sailing for something called the capital, on a ship called The Quiet Isle. He told her that once she was able to tell them who she was and where she came from, they would find a way to get her there somehow - as a secondary thought he asked whether she knew her letters and could write it down, but she shook her head not understanding the question. 

He left her in peace and she slept again. Eventually Davos sent a maester known only as Elder Brother in to check her bandages. He asked her name too, and Brienne’s voice finally came out but only in pieces. Struggling to get the words - any words - out, she babbled and strained to say everything she could think of. She tried to tell Elder Brother that she needed to see Ser Jaime; that she was attacked by selkies; that her people were in danger and she needed Ser Jaime’s help. But all that rose to the surface were disparate syllables which Elder Brother and Davos cobbled together and declared to be her name; she was too tired to correct them.

On the second day, she was able to sit up in the uncomfortable bed. She had spent enough time on the surface to understand what a reflection was, but the face she saw in the looking glass hung on the wall was as unfamiliar to her as Elder Brother himself. 

Her hair was still yellow, but it was soft to the touch in the air unlike before. Her skin was clear - the freckles and reddened patches gone. Her shoulders were narrow, almost petite. And she knew at a glance that she was beautiful, as the red witch had promised. 

Only her eyes seemed unchanged. 

Two days later they were preparing to land and Brienne was finally able to utter the words “Ser Jaime” unbroken. From her pantomime that followed, Davos was able to discern that she wanted to be taken to a Ser Jaime - and he only knew of the one. 

When the ship landed, he disembarked with her and escorted her on her new barely-stable legs to the Red Keep wearing the only dress that the smugglers had on board which was small enough for her new petite frame - pink with Myrish lace. It suited her, though she imagined that anything would suit this false body; it certainly would not have done for her true form. 

At the gates of the castle, Davos presented himself as a knight and asked to be taken to the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, and they are led to the White Sword Tower to await his return from a Small Council Meeting. 


	6. Chapter 6

Having had no experience with stairs, Brienne was struggling by the time they reached their destination, and she could feel sweat - another new sensation - pooling under her arms and at the backs of her knees. Davos settled her in a chair and walked out into the hall to try and source some water for the lady. 

The Lord Commander did not keep them waiting long, and met Davos outside the door. She could hear their conversation, and the dampness persisted at her joints and, now, at the back of her neck. Davos was telling the man her story - that she had been found stranded in the ocean and that she had spoken few words, but insisted that she needed to come to him. Davos gave the man the name he and Elder Brother had forged from her first words, and she heard Jaime’s voice reply “...but I do not know anyone called Cersei.” 

She stood and reached for the door, desperate - perhaps once he saw her face he would not question it, perhaps… no, she was too weak from the climb. She was able to grip the door and saw Davos turn toward her as she fell to the ground. She was instantly gathered up in someone’s arms - arms that felt cool next to her overexerted flesh - and carried back into the room to the chair that she had abandoned. Dizzy, she kept her eyes down until she saw Jaime’s hand - his right hand - holding her own. The injuries had healed, but there was still a bit of puckered pink scarring along the side of his wrist and across his knuckles. 

Jaime knelt in front of her, trying to meet her glance, and she could see that the line on his forehead was gone, but his eyes - those were the same as she had dreamt in the eon since she had seen him. Davos was there too but once Brienne caught sight of those familiar green eyes right in front of her, there could have been no one else in the world for all she knew. 

Jaime got out “My lady, are you--” and she was fairly sure that his next word would have been “well” but his eyebrows knit together and he started, sitting back on his heels, making her drop her free hand which had absently reached up to graze the spot where the scar should have been, just over his eye. 

He stared into her eyes for an eternity, and she thought perhaps that the witch’s magic was working; that Jaime was falling for her beauty. But then he looked down, seeing that the fingers of the hand he held were glancing across the residual scars on his wrist. 

“I know you,” he said. 

“Well I should hope so,” said Davos from somewhere above them.

Brienne felt her stomach drop. If he knew who she was, then he would know that she was not beautiful. He would not follow her. 

Suddenly Jaime gasped for breath as if he had been submerged until that moment and was breaking the surface of the pools in her eyes. “Is it…” he reached his other hand up to cup her cheek, and his fingers grazed the place where her gills should be. “Brienne?” 

Brienne felt errant tears threatening the corners of her eyes. She wanted to shake her head. She wanted to lie. But she could not. She nodded and Jaime caught one of her tears with his thumb. 

“Ser Davos,” Jaime said without looking away, “thank you for returning my… cousin to me. It has been some time since I last saw her and I almost did not recognize her.” Finally he looked up at the other man and stood. “Can I do anything for you in return, ser?” 

Ser Davos smirked and looked at Brienne to confirm that she was alright. She gave him a smile which he returned. “No, ser. I am only glad the lady is with friends now.” He said his goodbyes and, once he was gone, Jaime dropped back to his knees in front of her and held her shoulders.

He smiled, “I would know those astonishing eyes anywhere.”

She grinned sadly and cupped his jaw as if to say the same of his, her hand acting apart from her brain. She knew that she had to harden her heart against him if she was going to go through with this. Her own life was at stake. The lives of her people were at stake - her father. She had a chance to save them, and Jaime was the key. 

“But,” he said, pushing his forehead against hers, breathing her in and making her pulse quicken, “you are so changed… and I-- where have your freckles gone?” 

The sentiment stuck in Brienne’s gut like a hook. The witch could not have anticipated this. She could not have anticipated this. The gods could not have guessed that she had already been beautiful in Jaime’s eyes, or that he had spent as much time dreaming of her as she of him. 

Killing him would be much more painful than she had imagined.


	7. Chapter 7

Jaime lodged her in one of the lower towers of the keep among the servants whilst she recovered from her exertions. For the first two days, he visited with her whenever he had a free moment, asking her questions which she could not answer, and telling her about the city, which she could view from her small window. On the third day he had arranged to have his duties covered and he spent the whole day recounting for her how his life had altered since she had saved his life. 

Jaime had been born into a great house in the west, but as a young man he had been honored with appointment to a position in the Kingsguard. His father had wanted him to stay at home and promote the family line but Jaime had wanted to be a true knight and he believed serving the king to be the most honorable pursuit. So he had defied his father and accepted the king’s offer. It was not long before he realized how cruel and mad the king he guarded was, but he had sworn his oaths and he could not leave. 

The night that Brienne had rescued him, the king himself had set fire to the royal ship en route from Dorne to the capital. In the aftermath of the explosion, Jaime had found the king with torch in hand, moving to set fire to the untouched portions of the ship. Jaime had wrestled the torch from the king and thrown it into the sea. In a fury, the king had shoved Jaime backward toward the blaze, screaming “burn them all!” and then chased the extinguished torch into the water. Jaime, like the king and many of the men who had been traveling with him that night, could not swim. And so even if he had not honorably fought and then found himself in harm’s way, he would not have survived without Brienne’s intercession. 

When the ship had not made its scheduled return to the capital, the king’s son sent a search party south and, though few bodies had washed up on the Stormland shores, it was eventually presumed that all had perished that night, set on by pirates or worse. When Jaime returned some time later after begging his way to King’s Landing, he was welcomed back as a kind of hero by some, and as a fearsome spirit by others. The new king - that sane son of the mad king who had died - elevated Jaime to Lord Commander. And so now he found himself serving a more worthy king, and he strove to feel deserving of his new station. He never revealed to anyone the terms of the former king’s demise, nor did he clarify the assumed record.

Once Jaime had finished his tale, Brienne pantomimed her own as best she could. Jaime managed to gather that she needed to get back to the sea, and that she wanted him to go with her. When she struggled to explain her reason - while avoiding certain facts - he stopped her. He did not need a reason, he had said - she had saved his life, and he would not deny her his help. And so he secured leave from his duties and made arrangements for them to go to the Stormlands with a carriage - since Brienne could not have ridden - and two other guards, leaving four days after her arrival in the capital. 


	8. Chapter 8

A fortnight had passed since her transformation before Brienne recovered her voice. And when he heard it again Jaime very nearly cried for, despite being slow to return in this new body, it - like her eyes - had not changed. He took up her hand in his and would not let it go until she had told her story again, without miming it; by then they were almost at Tarth. 

She told him that her form had been altered by a witch who was keeping her family captive, who had turned her in order to punish her for her interference in the shipwreck; she needed Jaime’s help to rescue them because she did not know and trust any other men. She did not tell him at what cost the lives of her family would come until they had been on the island for two days. By then she found that she could lie to him no longer. She had grown attached to him - more than she ever had with Renly, and with more love than she had ever felt before. She would not abuse his honor with trickery. 

When she told him the truth of it, he turned her hand over in his as if looking for something, and squeezed it. He said that he understood and that he felt he had been waiting a year for this - that he had always expected his life to have come at a price; if this was it, he was glad to forfeit his own that those she loved might live; only once they reached the shore where he had been beached did he ask if there was any way around it - not because he did not want to help her family, but because he did not want her to have his life on her conscience. At this, she became overwhelmed with feeling and he held her until she pulled away and ran to sit on the beach in solitude, unable to bear his proximity. That night he sent his lieutenants back to the capital without them, gold in hand, and secrecy secured. 

Jaime walked to the beach and sat down next to Brienne in the sand, wrapping her in his arms, and she let him. She had ripped the sleeves from her borrowed dress days ago, and now she found that when the air was chilled, Jaime’s arms were just as warm as they had been when they first met, and she sank into them. Hey stayed there many hours, listening to her hum until her voice grew tired and they fell asleep curled against each other.He left her there an hour before sunrise and went back to the inn to don his armor. She woke on his return as the first pink rays of dawn picked at the sky, just like that morning so many moons ago. 

“I can make it easier on you,” he said. “My armor is heavy. Walk me into the sea and it will drag me down.” 

She stared at him. “Why?!” she cried. 

“You are the reason I lived,” he replied with a sad smile. “Let me be yours.” 

She began to say no through her tears. But as the sun peeked over the horizon, his armor cast a golden light all around them, and she found herself looking down at her petite hands and arms, and then down at the sand which now in the low tide continued further east than before.

The armor would sink him. 

It would sink him because it was dense. It was heavy . 

She knew what had to be done. 

She stood and took his hand, pulling him behind her, across the sand. When they were just out of reach of the sandbar, she had him sit, and told him to stay in that spot, and then asked for his blade. 

He gave her a strange look but unbuckled the sword belt all the same. 

“What will you do, Brienne?”

“I have to try,” she said sadly. 

He placed the ornate blade with the animal on the pommel in her hand, and then passed her the smaller dagger that he wore on the other hip. When she took the dagger, he clasped her hand. “Swear that I will see you again.” 

She nodded, then knelt in the sand to bring their eyes level. “Jaime, the next time you see me, I will be in my true form.”

He nodded almost imperceptibly and reached out as if to brush sand from her bare unmarked shoulder. He met her glance, “Thank the gods.”

“Can you wait for me?”

“Will you promise to come back?” he asked sadly.

Brienne worried at her lip. “If no one has come for you by sunset, then I have failed and you must go, else you may still be in danger. If that happens, do not try to find me. Go, and do not come back to the sea for anything, ever. Swear to me that you will do as I say.”

He cupped her face, fingers stretching again to that point on her throat where her gills should be, and looked deeply as if re-memorizing her eyes. “I swear it.”

She swallowed and stood up and away from his touch. “Do not forget to breathe - to,” she gestured for holding breath, not having the words, “please.”

He nodded. “I will remember.”

She took one last look at him, storing his golden face and hair in her mind, whispering his name like a wish, and then turned from him. She divested herself of the dress and, clasping the sword in one hand and the dagger in the other, she dove into the waves.


	9. Chapter 9

Her form began to revert painfully. She felt the skin of her neck, where Jaime’s fingers had just been, tear open as her gills re-formed, and she twisted in agony as the bones of her shoulders expanded, and her cheekbones stretched. 

But her tail caused the most excruciating pain. The bones of her legs and feet seemed to dissolve as her lower body re-molded into her vivid blue tail. She felt sore, and awkward as she had in youth, swimming crookedly until she could finally control her tail properly and orient herself. 

She navigated the coastal shelf and secreted the dagger. Then she retraced her path, sensing the currents until she thought she had located the whirlpool at the cave mouth, perhaps a league away. 

As she approached the cavern, she whipped her powerful tail harder, speeding up to burst through the watery cyclone. She came out the other side without incident and swam deeper into the cave until she came upon the selkies, still guarding her pod while the witch seemed to be meditating in the corner, her fiery hair glowing brighter than Brienne recalled. Her eyes shot open at Brienne’s approach, and two of the guards moved to block her entry, but the witch waved them off, looking at the sword almost as if with recognition. 

Brienne moved it in an arc through the water, letting it catch the red glow. “This is his,” she told the witch. I was able to lure him to the beach and subdue him, but he is too heavy. The body you gave me on land was weak and could not pull him into the sea. And now that I have my form, I cannot reach him. I have brought the sword as proof of my intent.”

The witch looked at her hungrily. “So close, foolish child. And you let mere weakness get in the way.”

“He is near,” cried Brienne, “Come to the surface if you do not believe me - perhaps you can reach him - your form is more suited for the land.” She stuck the sword into the silt as if to call a truce. The witch nodded with a gleam in her eye and preceded Brienne to the entrance to the cavern. She dragged her claws across the wall near the entrance, and the whirlpool dissipated, clearing the way for them.


	10. Chapter 10

The red woman seemed to know exactly where to find Jaime, and she sped away leaving Brienne struggling to catch up. Before she could, the witch had lurched out of the water and onto the sandbar. In less than a minute, the selkie reappeared, dragging Jaime in his full armor into the water by the leg. As their figures sank, it barely occurred to the witch that she had lost track of Brienne. 

The witch was in such a fury and so committed to finishing the game that she had mislaid the most important player. 

She had sunk with him nearly ten fathoms when the dagger sliced through her neck. 

While the selkie had above the surface, Brienne had recovered the blade and had sat coiled in the shadows until the witch had reappeared beneath the waves. Brienne had followed quick as she could, snapping her tail hard, knowing that Jaime’s life was in the balance. With one final powerful thrust she had reached them and ended the witch’s life and, by association - though she did not know it - the lives of the selkies who guarded the others in the cavern; the seal-skinned creatures had turned to sea foam at the red woman’s demise, floating away and leaving the merfolk surprised, but free. Brienne’s father slowly lead his people back out into the open sea, the god of death having been appeased.

Brienne wanted to rejoice in the death of the red woman, but they were 20 yards below the surface now; Jaime was nearly out of air, and the armor was weighing him down.

Brienne tore at the golden armor and his clothes, removing piece after piece in an attempt to make him more buoyant. She gripped his arms and tried to climb higher, but she had exhausted her newly-re-grown muscles, and was too weak to lift them both; they continued to sink deeper. 

Jaime was getting weaker and even as Brienne’s tears floated free around them, Jaime’s eyes said that he understood. He touched her arm, marveling at the speckled skin of her true self, and then he reached up and stroked her hair which, under water, was softer than silk - she had wanted this that first morning and had longed for it ever since. And now it would be her last memory of him - his fingers running through the hair at the nape of her neck while his palm stroked the skin around her gills. 

She stared at him. 

Her gills. 

She forced Jaime to look at her and, cupping his face, slanted her mouth against his, pushing his lips into an O with her own, sealing him against the sea, and breathing into him.

His eyes widened as his lungs expanded, and she felt him settle his hands on her thick waist where skin met scales, holding her close as they continued to sink downward as one. 

The god of death, having already been sated, took pity on them.

Gently, Jaime pulled away, breaking the seal. Brienne reached for him, desperate to save him again, but then froze. Under her fingers, his skin had split, though he showed no sign of pain as he breathed his first watery breath. He smiled, his startling green eyes fixed on hers, as his bright golden tail fidgeted and flexed below them, and then entwined with hers, pulling her closer still. And though she no longer breathed for him, his mouth sought hers, and he held her in a forever kind of embrace.


End file.
